At the gym, forgot to eat breakfast, forgot my headphones, forgot my water bottle, phone’s on 30% battery, it’s all gone wrong for me

Really bad tennis elbow at the moment and it’s just got worse over the last month (finished a course of naproxen so I’m now waiti g for a steroid injection) so I’ve had to take a week off the gym, and replaced lifting heavy with a 90 minute walk with a 5kg backpack and hip mobility exercises.

Come to the gym with my wife today so didn’t bring my headphones as we usually spot each other and there’s no need. Anyway today she’s doing cardio so I’m listening to the worst, bass heavy, trance music that they pipe in

Going to need a gym pin soon as I’m full stacking the cable machine on ab crunches. The only weakness there is the grip strength

On to RDLs now, done squats and leg press, and my mood has improved so much now

Managed to get going, managed 147kg on the leg press, am now doing squats with 30kg

Feeling bloody awful so I’m at the gym hoping this will let me burn off some of the depression and fury that I’m full of today. Forgot my weightlifting shoes, and my watch died as I walked in to the gym. So the temptation was to sit in the car park crying

Going out for a walk wearing awful looking clothes that I can at least walk in comfortably. Because I’ve spent 12 week just building muscle and concentrating on hitting my protein and fibre goals I’ve got stronger without losing any fat, so I’m about 6kg heavier than at the start.

The weight stack and I’m 7 from the bottom on 59kg

Getting perilously close to full stacking this machine

New thing I can do: I can dead hang. Managed 10 seconds

Bums, some little recurring soreness seems to be wanting to turn into an actual injury

Eugh, one of those days where I can’t manage what I could last week, I’m putting that down to the new gym and having to recalibrate. The cable machine may be slightly stiffer or the weights a bit heavier

Back at the new gym after a week on the road. Busy as it’s the bank holiday, and managed to make a fool of myself straight away, but some young lad was nice and helped.

This machine needs some WD40, both me and the cable machine

Back at it. Found a new gym, checked they’re trans inclusive and now here I am, an extra 10 minutes drive further than my old gym. Let’s shift some iron

Yep, had to drop out here.

Might have to be the first of these I bail on. On the penultimate exercise, and I’m at 2/3 the weight I was able to last week and only 5 reps rather than 10.

Forgot my ADHD meds before I came here, so that’s going to be part of it. Eugh. Hate this.

Now to the easiest. Calf raises. Sets of 20 until total failure. Piece of piss. I’m going to looks so unbalanced at the end of this, big traps, triceps, and calves, and everything else normal sized 😂

Cable bench step ups are far and away my least favourite exercise. Literally nothing else that I do has my brain screaming to stop and not do another set even though I’m not close to failure. Can’t wait for 4 weeks time when I stop doing them for 12 weeks

Oh he’s just a prick. Hmm, keeps just being too close to the various women in here already at their stations and expecting them to work round him

Lots of stairs on Thursday-Saturday this week so I’ve moved Leg Day to today. All the squat racks are taken so I’m using one of the bench press stations. Some guy’s set up a bit close so I’m worried I’m about to hit him with the bar

Sore arms today because Saturday’s last two sets were with weights that are too heavy for my joints so far. So I’m going to drop down weight on back day this week and do more reps until my elbows and forearms catch up. I’m also going to do some grip strength work

Worst bit of this isn’t motivating myself to come here, it isn’t when I don’t eat enough protein and get DOMS, it’s because I’m lifting for hypertrophy waiting for 2-3 minutes between sets

One of the rotten things about being a middle aged fat woman who’s piling on muscle and losing fat is that in order so see how impressive my biceps are I have to push in the little flap of bingo wing at the armpit.

I’m so used to either being able to lift more or less across the board that it’s super confusing that I just did more on the lat pull down, but am doing the exact same as last week on the cable row. But it feels more difficult

There are two lat pull down stations on this one machine, and one has 2.5kg increments and the other 5kg and it’s breaking my brain

Day 3 this week, and boy are my arms tired.

Today, it’s back exercises

I originally tore them pulling a fixed wheeled trolley in a direction it didn’t want to go and it never healed properly, did 3 months of physio then tore it again in at the petrol pump then 4 months later bending over in the shower. But it’s been nearly 2 years and a lot of physio since that

Yeah, then they re-tore last year. Wasn’t even doing anything at the time, just stood filling the car with diesel. Been doing physio on them ever since. Finally feel like they’ve healed enough to actually put them through their paces. But the weights are so bloody low 😂

20 reps low weight to total failure, one more set and I think I’m not going to be raising more than a couple of centimetres past rep 10